Coal Mine Accident Deaths Fall

{Frankfort, Kentucky}...During the past year, the death toll from U.S. coal mine accidents fell to 21, the second lowest annual count since the federal government began keeping records more than a century ago. Kentucky led the nation in coal deaths in 2011 with eight miners killed on the job, followed by West Virginia with six. Joe Main, head of the U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration, said stepped up federal safety enforcement has helped the coal industry to rebound from 2010 when 48 miners were killed nationwide, 29 of them in an underground explosion at the Upper Big Branch mine in West Virginia.